


many happy returns

by LieutenantSaavik



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, she really fuckin loved rose bro... she still really fuckin does bro......., the doctor remembers rose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:42:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22511926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LieutenantSaavik/pseuds/LieutenantSaavik
Summary: Time is swirling around her.Maybe not swirling so much as collecting, coiling, a snake ready to strike. Imagery of webs, threads, threats, stealing closer and closer as memories wash up on the Bad Wolf Bay of her mind.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Comments: 26
Kudos: 113





	many happy returns

**Author's Note:**

  * For [regenderate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/regenderate/gifts).



Time is swirling around her.

Maybe not swirling so much as collecting, coiling, a snake ready to strike. Imagery of webs, threads, threats, stealing closer and closer as memories wash up on the Bad Wolf Bay of her mind.

Jack Harkness is back. That _means_ something. He’s a person, not a portent, but still. Returns are resurrections, and resurrections hang heavy in the hand-stitched fabric of fate. They’re the absolute unwinding of death; they’re sand flowing upward through an hourglass. They’re proof that what goes around comes around, proof that a cycle exists. That’s comfort.

She hadn’t realised it, but she’d missed him. Over a decade has gone by since she last saw him.

Over a decade has gone by since she last saw Rose.

She lists a few names in her head. _Bill, Clara, Rory, Amy, River, Donna, Martha, Mickey..._

Her last face, her Twelfth face, was given to her by Donna. Donna, and perhaps a parting action from her dying Eleventh self. _Just save one_ , is the message they left her. _You’ll be embittered now--you’ll be old, and scared, and angry. But don’t lose hope; remember this._

The irony inherent in the fact that she couldn’t save Donna. 

She couldn’t save Bill. Or Amy. Or River.

Or Clara. Clara, lost and found, then lost and found, then lost and found, then lost--and erased--and found. 

She never really needed to save Martha. Martha, in fact, saved _her_. 

As did Rose.

She returns again to Rose.

It occurs to her that Jack doesn’t know about the Metacrisis, never learned that the Doctor was duplicated so Rose could love one of him. It would have meant a lot to him to know, she reflects. Because Jack loved Rose too, and she loved Jack too, and it’s all so far back in her memory by now--locked behind, what, three different faces? She’s sprightly and young, now. She’s _new_ , now. It shouldn’t hurt her.

But it does.

Speaking of faces, this face is curious. Curious, as in ‘exuding curiosity,’ yes, but also curious as in ‘odd.’ Her bright, green-brown eyes under sharply-defined, expressive eyebrows. Her blonde hair, inexplicably browned at the roots. Those traits belong to Rose; they have always been Rose. The Doctor’s Thirteenth self has Rose written all over her. 

That, too, is comfort.

Because there aren’t many happy returns in the Doctor’s life. To be a Time-Lord, essentially, is to _be_ what Time _does_. Time ages people into physical unrecognisability, ensures that they lose the loves of their life to death and the general parting of ways. Humans, the species she cares for most, don’t regenerate; they get to grow and change like they’re piecing a puzzle together. They don’t have to burn their old selves into cinders. They look in the mirror and know who they are. They evolve naturally, not sporadically.

But they’re gone so soon.

She’s been to times where Rose wasn’t born. She’s been to times when Rose was dead. She’s _taken_ Rose to times when Rose was dead. In that way, the universe will always bear their fingerprints. Two travellers knit together by chance and by choice, and then, eventually, by love.

The Doctor forgets dates and birthdays and, repeatedly, her current gender. But she can’t forget love. She wouldn't be the Doctor if she could forget love. Having Jack back--knowing he’s out there, looking for her--means she can’t not think of Rose. Rose is the reason she was able to heal from the Time-War, the reason she was able to return to her promise of what being the Doctor meant. Rose is half the reason she isn’t still cruel. Rose, and the people like her--it goes all the way back to Susan and Ian and Barbara, really--are the reason she didn’t turn out like the other Gallifreyans, like the Rani or the Master or worse. 

The Doctor knows she could have been worse. She can spit speeches about trails of blood and complete obliteration as easily as she can preach about forgiveness. Sometimes, she wonders about the duality within her her, if she’s split her soul into two parts so that one part can shoulder the guilt of the other and half of her can be free.

Rose would have laid a hand on her shoulder and held her, and assured her--reassured her--

Reassured her of something the Doctor can’t even _name_ , now.

Maybe because it was named Rose.

_She's gone, Jack. She's not just living on a parallel world; she's trapped there. The walls have closed._

Time is swirling around her. But it will never bring her any closer to home.

And it will never bring her any closer to Rose.


End file.
